Slashdot Mirror
A Peek Inside D-Wave's Quantum Computing Hardware
JeremyHsu writes: A one-second delay can still seem like an eternity for a quantum computing machine capable of running calculations in mere millionths of a second. That delay represents just one of the challenges D-Wave Systems overcame in building its second-generation quantum computing machine known as D-Wave Two — a system that has been leased to customers such as Google, NASA and Lockheed Martin. D-Wave's rapid-scaling approach to quantum computing has plenty of critics, but the company's experience in building large-scale quantum computing hardware could provide valuable lessons for everyone, regardless of whether the D-Wave machines live up to quantum computing's potential by proving they can outperform classical computers. (D-Wave recently detailed the hardware design changes between its first- and second-generation quantum computing machines in the the June 2014 issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity.)
"We were nervous about going down this path," says Jeremy Hilton, vice president of processor development at D-Wave Systems. "This architecture requires the qubits and the quantum devices to be intermingled with all these big classical objects. The threat you worry about is noise and impact of all this stuff hanging around the qubits. Traditional experiments in quantum computing have qubits in almost perfect isolation. But if you want quantum computing to be scalable, it will have to be immersed in a sea of computing complexity.
"We were nervous about going down this path," says Jeremy Hilton, vice president of processor development at D-Wave Systems. "This architecture requires the qubits and the quantum devices to be intermingled with all these big classical objects. The threat you worry about is noise and impact of all this stuff hanging around the qubits. Traditional experiments in quantum computing have qubits in almost perfect isolation. But if you want quantum computing to be scalable, it will have to be immersed in a sea of computing complexity.
It will never be able to compete with classical methods in anything but random number generation.
Wasn't there an article recently where it wasn't near as superior as they made out?...
You can't LOOK at it!
But if you want quantum computing to be scalable, it will have to be immersed in a sea of computing complexity.
Whereas a traditional, scalable computer is immersed in a sea of KFC oil.
I'm a smart guy and I don't understand this. What really bothers me is that the elder nerds on this site also don't understand this. People speculate whether this D-Wave thing is really quantum or not. Whatever that means. And supposedly it is no faster than a real computer. What gives?
"A one-second delay can still seem like an eternity for a quantum computing machine capable of running calculations in mere millionths of a second."
Millionths!?!
Um, last time I looked, most microcontroller chips could make calculations in "mere millionths of a second".
Given that a $1^noise diode and a $2ADC can do an excellent job of generating random numbers... well....
Only you can completely yet authoritatively misunderstand the subject! Please enlighten us! How does it work?
Does it work like the base of a bipolar transistor, using heat to modulate the transistor?
I still think the non-local entanglement stuff is bullshit --- local entanglement is where multuiple particles are simultaneously subject to the same 'writing' influences to have the same effect on both particles (seems doable) - but non-local is where you do that 'write' to change one qubit over here and 17 miles away the other 'entangled' particle somehow shows the same effect (when eventually read) even though its physically outside of the effecting influences range (usually magnetic fields) of that write mechanism.
I would figure that for these quantum values that the particles are supposed to be able to store (instead of a digital 1 or 0, it is some 'value' state being a ratio of continuous values (- ie -1.0 to +1.0 with tiny discernable steps) there is the ability to consistantly WRITE tiny incremental changes (input values) using some mechanism (for some summation function ) and then be READ out with sufficient accuracy (effectively to a floating point number) to get the output of the operations.
What I havent seen yet is what the accuracy of those (write and read) numbers are (like : is it the equivalent of the mantissa of a standard 80/32/64 bit Floating point value) which would indicate the Quality of the data so as to be useful in calculations which require value accuracy (I suppose multiple qubits could be staged if needed to get larger accuracy, but still what is the Basic Units (single qubit) range of values to store one variable and how small the increments which can be applied to modify the value) ???
Supposedly each qubit is supposed to be a single value (ignore the simultaneous quantum state stuff while in-progress) so that using N of them you can work all at once on problems with N simultaneous variables.
How large then is the machinery require to get sufficient accuracy/quality of individual values for say astronomical observations (something like 15 base 10 digits of accuracy)? Many of the mechanisms use cryogenics, and many of the experiments use mechanisms the size of a small car.
D-Wave does it on integrated chips , but again I havent heard what their USEABLE qubit value ranges are.
In a sci-fi world...
The fact that nobody has been able to measure what the frig is going on with D-Wave's quantum computer is probably a requirement for the thing to work.
The moment we are all allowed to look under the hood, it'll collapse into some useless state and all that hardware will be rendered no more valuable than your average cat.
However, if you read the article (which I did), they are doing real engineering. They are building very sophisticated superconducting quantum circuits. Their second generation machine has four times the qubits and cycles much more quickly. This is very difficult and advanced work, and they are making it happen.
So why is DWave getting so much flack on Slashdot? Somehow I doubt it's because there are vast number of quantum physics types just waiting to display their deep knowledge whenever the subject comes up. What I see are Slashdot Pundits: hoards of pseudotechnical wanna-be's who pile on with meaningless criticism. The motivation is not to have a useful debate but to pretend to be smart by talking trash. Maybe they impress each other, but from my vantage point it looks like a lot of eight year olds shouting curse words they don't understand and giggling over how cool they are.
Why is Snark Required?
There are claims but then there is alot of disagreement whether any such effect can happen
That is 2 particle processed (close) together to have the same state (zeroed and then same influences ''written' to them) and then if one is moved elsewhere quite far away and the first has another influence applied to it that the second distant particle will show an equivalent effect upon it (as if they were 'entangled together' and the effect is reflected on both despite the distance). Some theory claims say that this can even be seen to happen faster than light could travel the distance (and a whole nuther schism says it cannot)
I can understand a quantum particle being moved and retaining the same state as the other and when 'read' showing the same value (preserving it if handled correctly - isolated from external influences).
Again there are claims to this 'THEORY" but others argue it hasnt really been demonstrated (usually the act of moving the second particle disturbs its state one way or another.)